WGBH Openvault

Elliot Norton Reviews; Agnes De Mille

Dubbed from A2-01896. Original record date 1/20/1973. First aired 2/20/1973 and again on 2/23/1973.

License Clip

More material is available from this program at the WGBH Archive.
If you are a researcher interested in accessing the collection at WGBH,
please email archive_requests@wgbh.org.

Undigitized item:
Request Digitization

Untranscribed item:
Request Transcription

Digitization and Transcription Requests

You can contribute to the digitization and transcription of materials on Open Vault.
Costs vary between items, and digitization may be restricted by copyright,
but explain your interests via
email,
and we will work with you to make more historic WGBH content available to the world.

Elliot Norton interviews dancer, author, and renowned choreographer Agnes de Mille. They discuss her experiences as a choreographer and well as some of her upcoming projects. De Mille is most well-known for the choreography of “Rodeo (1942)”, “Fall River Legend (1948)”, and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma! (1943) and “Carousel (1945)”. De Mille tells Norton about inviting Rodgers and Hammerstein to opening night of “Rodeo”, which impressed them enough to request that she choreograph “Oklahoma!” Her production of “Oklahoma” opened first at the Shubert Theater in New Haven, where it was called “Away We Go”. Althought it was not considered a success, it was still picked up to go to Boston and then onto Broadway. One aspect of de Mille’s choreography that was considered revolutionary was the fact that the dancers played the same roles in the ballet scenes as in the rest of the play. Although the play was a great success on Broadway, even considered by some to be the biggest hit of the 21st century, de Mille tells Norton about only receiving $50 a week and later only half of 1% of the profits with no residuals and no raise. Her second Rodgers and Hammerstein show, “Carousel” was, like her first, primarily ballet. She brought in talented dancers instead of relying on the “beautiful” chorus girls that were used in Broadway shows at the time. Norton points out that she replaced the idea of the “glamour girl” with the idea of the “good performer,” even though, as de Mille notes, the dancers are still pretty.